


if you want roses

by greninja



Series: canonverse edling [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: JUST FLUFY jhkgj, M/M, and i remembered my first crush on a girl :'-), and more character investigation bc im about that shit, early canon the day they meet shit, so like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-17 22:34:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15471597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greninja/pseuds/greninja
Summary: i want to know your fears / if you’ll forget me next year





	if you want roses

Ed's not really one for mushy feelings—well, he tries his best not to be, since the attachment makes for a more painful separation. It's like... removing a bandage, or that moment when the nerves click back in tune with the automail. A joining that aches with the pain of anticipation.

His own sixteenth birthday is closing in, just a couple weeks away. Winter is growing from the discard of autumn, but the South Area hasn't seemed to catch up. Society is sparser here, he thinks, and he sees more stars than usual in the sky, just like you can back home. He savors them—the train to Central, a city polluted with light and grime, leaves tomorrow morning.

A mechanic's familiar voice yanks Ed back to the real world—he's sitting on a stool, before a desk with next to no visible surface area. Strewn across is an array of tools he can't name. He looks to the door.

"Ed, come on! I need to lock up for the night!"

"Fuckin' gearhead. I'd so much rather just stay in this workshop, where no one's gonna _fucking_ bother me."

Winry leans against the doorframe, pushing her bangs back. "It's so _late,_ though. Can't you at least pretend to go to sleep?"

"I like being alone in here."

"Whatever. Can't you just go be alone upstairs? Garfiel lives above the shop. He has extra rooms for everyone."

"Fine."

The pair step out onto the sidewalk, a bell tinkling as the front door to the atelier shuts. Winry locks it, and leads Ed up a rickety stair at the side of the building—the apartment waits at the top. The room they enter is warm in an orange glow, smelling of food and clean. A hallway, to which Winry points, is nearly hidden in a corner.

"Come with me. My room's there, and there's another one that's empty. Al's hanging out with me. Go have your quiet time, dick." She smiles wryly at Ed, who does the same back.

He immediately splays across the bed, maybe ready to try sleeping. It's always been hard, though. It isn't getting easier.

The window on the wall that the bed touches is open, only a screen protecting Ed from the nighttime breeze. His eyes bore holes in the ceiling, and he groans to release the day's tension. It's so nice, he thinks, to get some damn privacy. His reprieve is cut short when he hears a loud, pointed voice from outside.

"I feel the same way."

Ed tilts his head towards the sound. On the ledge outside he sees... Ling?

What was the weird guy from that afternoon doing _there?_

"How did you know I was here? The fuck's your problem?"

Ling's face is captive in thought. "Hanging around," he decides.

Ed's annoyed—almost flustered?—and twists his face. "Why?"

"Going to Central tomorrow. With you and your armor friend."

"What?" He's taken aback by Ling, unable to reason his way through this interaction.

"Aren't you going to Central City tomorrow? The Amestrian capital?"

"Yes?"

The two are locked in an awkward stare, Ed failing to shake whatever feeling it was he'd started to feel—was it charmed? He decided that instinct was a lie, that he was more pissed off than anything.

"Are you going to let me in?" Ling tries his best to look sweet. "It's not very comfortable on the roof, you see."

Ed can only sputter. "I just—I just met you today, and you had your fuckin'—bodyguards, like, try to kill me?" He's sat up on the bed by now, practically pressing his nose into the window screen between Ling and himself. "You're a fuckin' asshole, is what you are."

Ling smiles even wider, laughing a bit. Okay, he is pretty charming. Ed tries to fight it, but something about this strange, goofy boy—oh, god—makes him melt a bit. He curses himself for indulging his mushy heart. Is it Ling's earnest smile, even on the face of such an asshole? The cloying gaze? He's pretty tall, too—

Well, that's... something, he thinks. He decides it's a thought to be pushed to some unbecoming corner of his consciousness.

"You can come in," he says as he unlatches the window.

"Thanks, Edward! You really are the best." Ling flashes another grin while somehow managing to make climbing through a window graceful. He lands with an unceremonious plop on the bed and makes himself comfortable without asking. Ed doesn't mind—or, at least, isn't focused enough to. He's entranced by the show his new... acquaintance is putting on for him.

It's just a twin bed, so Ling is pressed against Ed's side. "What were we walking about?"

Ed forgets to answer for a moment, missing a beat and feeling his face turn hot. "Um—Central. I'm going to Central tomorrow. My brother. Is coming. With me."

"And he's the suit of armor?"

"Uh, yeah." For once, Ed isn't wanting to be surly, but he plays the part regardless.

"Could you explain that?"

"I'd rather not right now."

"That's fine." Ling takes a moment to untie the ribbon in his hair, slightly bent from being up all day. It's dark, and falls past his shoulders. Smells nice. Then, he slips off his jacket, folding it into a yellow mess on his lap. Ed, still wearing both of his own jackets, is unable to deny his flustered self any longer, with a shirtless Ling right next to him, scraping gunk from under his fingernails.

You know, Ed considers, this is pretty nice. He's inclined to push people away in every sense of the word, but this boy is, contrarily, drawing him in. He's felt it before—there once was a boy who worked on a sheep farm back home. A boy he'd gone to school with as a kid. He'd always admired Mason, Sig's assistant, from afar.

Maybe this is what a crush is supposed to feel like. Maybe it doesn't have to be a girl, like he'd thought for most of his life. Maybe it's something that just happens, that you can't force out of perceived obligation, as he had before. He used to think he liked Winry, but maybe it was just that—a thought, a something he really wanted to believe in, but it didn't ever feel like having a boy pressing his leg against yours, and your hair touching his shoulder, and watching his nonchalance commandeer his face in the moonlight—

"Ed?. Ed." Ling is gently shaking him. Fuck, he keeps distracting himself—and with something so disgustingly sappy! He's not supposed to feel like that. He has to be tough enough to guard himself, sharp enough to bite back.

"Yeah? Sorry, I—um, fell asleep a little, I think." He grins sheepishly at Ling, who snorts.

"I was just going to ask if I could stay in here overnight. It's far more comfortable than the street, particularly at night, when it can get so cold—"

"Yes!" Ed worries that his answer came out a little too enthusiastic, and tries to deflect. "Are your, uh, bodyguards coming too?"

"Nope. They're fine, prolly figure something out." Ling tries to crawl off the bed. "I can sleep on the floor, if you want—"

Ed's instincts tell him it would be best to accept the offer, but that unbecoming corner of his consciousness he so badly wants to tune out makes a compelling counter-argument.

"You can stay on the bed if you want," Ed grumbles. "Just don't take up too much room, or whatever, because I know you're the kind of shithead who'd try to—"

"You're funny, Edward Elric. I'm interested in getting to know you better." With one final smile, Ling pulls the blanket over himself and faceplants into a pillow.

He's beautiful when he sleeps, Ed thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> title summary song is i want to know your plans by say anything! happy edlings lets go lesbians and gays


End file.
